Retirement gender gap

Older women face a host of financial challenges

11:41 PM,
Sep. 29, 2012

When Jeanne Majors retired in 2005, she assumed that she would pick up a part-time job and be in good financial shape. But when the economy slid into the recession, she lost her part-time job and could not find another. Financial experts and studies say that the gender pay gap is not disappearing ? women continue to earn less than men and are less likely to save for retirement.

Written by

Christine Dugas
USA Today

When Jeanne Majors, 63, took an early retirement in December 2005, she assumed that she would pick up a part-time job and be in good financial shape. She didn't know that her future would quickly fall apart.

Majors, who is single and lives in Brooklyn, learned the hard way about the retirement obstacles that most women face today. When the economy slid into the recession, she lost her part-time job and could not find another.

"They wanted somebody young," Majors says. "Or if I was a man, somebody would have hired me at my age. I'm not sorry that I retired, but things didn't turn out the way I wanted it ...